Former U.S. President Donald Trump greets to his supporters, as he arrives from his second civil trial after E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of raping her decades ago, outside a Trump Tower in the Manhattan borough of New York City, U.S., January 25, 2024.
Eduardo Munoz | Reuters
Former President Donald Trump on Thursday testified for just three minutes in the civil sex defamation case against him by E. Jean Carroll in New York federal court.
Judge Lewis Kaplan, who had limited Trump to answering a handful of pre-approved questions, struck much of the former president’s answers from the record.
Before Trump was called up, Kaplan warned him and his lawyers that Trump cannot dispute the verdict in another trial that found him liable for sexually abusing Carroll in the mid-1990s and then defaming the writer in 2019, when he was in the White House.
When defense lawyer Alina Habba asked if Trump had denied Carroll’s allegations in order to defend himself, Trump said, “I consider it a false accusation.”
Kaplan struck that response.
Asked if he ever instructed anyone to hurt Carroll, Trump replied, “No, I just wanted to defend myself, my family and frankly the presidency.”
Kaplan struck all of that response except the word “no.”
Trump also testified that he stood by the answers he gave in an October 2022 deposition, in which he called the case “rigged” and “a made-up story.”
Former U.S. President Donald Trump testifies as he takes the stand watched by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan during the second civil trial where E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of raping her decades ago, at Manhattan Federal Court in New York City, U.S., January 25, 2024 in this courtroom sketch.
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
Before Trump took the stand, Kaplan ejected his campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, from court because his phone rang during another witness’s testimony.
“Whose telephone is that?” Kaplan snapped before promptly removing Cheung from the courtroom.
The defense rested their case shortly after…
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